James Christy, Co-Discoverer of Charon, Pluto’s Largest Moon
![Man pointing at small dots on clear photographic plate.](https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/jimandcharon3.jpg?w=4096&format=jpeg)
June 25, 2018
Credit | U.S. Naval Observatory |
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1978
Jim Christy points to the photographic plate on which he and U.S. Naval Observatory colleague Robert Harrington discovered Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, in 1978.
2018
![Jim Christy holding his original Charon discovery image in 2018.](https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/christydiscoveryimage2018-1.jpg?w=4096&format=jpeg)
Jim Christy in 2018.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Art Howard/GHSPi
Forty years after his important discovery, Jim Christy holds two of the telescope images he used to spot Pluto’s large moon Charon in June 1978. A close-up photo of Charon, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during its July 2015 flyby, is displayed on his computer screen.